


Walls and Bedrock

by douxamer



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam and Ronan Are Good With Kids, Alternate Universe, Angst, Blow Jobs, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Flu, Fluff and Angst, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Child Abuse, Secrets, Sickfic, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-05 17:00:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12194028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/douxamer/pseuds/douxamer
Summary: ‘Adam?’ said the therapist, with maybe a tinge of impatience creeping into her voice.It wasn’t – it wasn’t like if he said the wrong answer she’d tattoo Adam’s forehead with ‘fucked-up.’(Ronan had said that this morning. Well, garbled it through a mouthful of eggs.)





	1. Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Non-magical AU, except Ronan's still a dream-thief. Set in the summer and fall between junior and senior year – Ronan has dropped out of school and is living alone in the Barns, while Adam is in an apartment and in school/working. Some things from canon are the same, some are different.
> 
> WARNING: In this fic Adam mentally re-lives many scenes from his abusive childhood. The abuse itself is not re-lived but there are several references to violence. Adam and other characters discuss, in depth, the psychological effects of his abuse.

‘Imagine, Adam,’ said the therapist patiently, ‘that a little boy is frightened by a sound, and he drops a glass jug. It smashes on the floor.’

Adam could see it clearly. A little boy in a murky, stained kitchen, startled by a noise. A muffled cry? His fingers are trying so hard to be careful. Too hard.

The jug slips. _Why does it always go like that?_ he thinks as it falls. _That when I need it the most, I lose control?_

‘And his father enters. What do you imagine his father might do?’

Adam didn’t answer at first. He was jiggling his leg, the noise of denim on leather far too loud in the silent room. He felt almost as though he were crouched at a starting line, waiting for the horn to sound.

Instead of speaking, he looked around the room. That was a grounding technique last month’s therapist had taught him: _'What colors can you see around you?’_ There was a lot of orange and red. Adam had had read somewhere that those colors provoked anger.

He focused on specific objects. A scarlet, splash-shaped clock. A portrait of woman sprawled on a chaise-longue in a red ball-gown. Her gaze seemed to match that of the therapist: blank, inscrutable, faintly distracted.

‘Adam?’ said the therapist, with maybe a tinge of impatience creeping into her voice.

It wasn’t – it wasn’t like if he said the wrong answer she’d tattoo Adam’s forehead with ‘fucked-up.’

(Ronan had said that this morning. Well, garbled it through a mouthful of eggs.)

Adam looked towards the half-closed blinds on the window, out at those tiny slits of white-blue sky, and thought of Ronan, hurtling towards him in his BMW, an explosion of undulating bass and dirty daydreams. Ronan had dreamed something up for Adam last night, only he’d hidden the object under the covers this morning, grinning his shark-grin.

‘I’ll give it to you when I pick you up from the therapist.’

Which was daylight bribery, but it had worked.

‘Adam?’ said the therapist. ‘It’s not a trick question.’

Adam imagined a child standing in broken glass and a father padding slow across it, each step making a small, fragile crunch.

He knew he needed to stop being so stupid. This was an easy question.

All he needed was for the imaginary father to be a different person.

_Ronan?_

He imagined Ronan kneeling on the floor beside a dirty-haired seven-year-old boy. Ronan had this tender, open expression on his face. He reached out, took the crying boy in his arms and murmured –

‘Sweetheart. What the fuck is all this fucking broken glass doing on the floor?’

Maybe Ronan wasn’t therapist-friendly.

_So – try Gansey._

It was incredibly easy to imagine Gansey, sitting bespectacled with a tiny, freckled kid on his knee, rambling on about something dull like how glass wasn't really a solid.

‘I suppose,’ Adam said finally, and his throat felt gluey. ‘I suppose the father would be gentle with the child, because he would – see it was an accident. And he might, uh, talk to the child, calmly, try to find out what made him break the jug. But he might – if he saw the child was upset, he might try to – distract him, maybe, talk about something else.’

‘And would the child eventually be punished for his behaviour?’

Adam was about to answer when the therapist jumped. A series of crashing sounds had come from the lobby. Either a stray dog had gotten in, or Ronan Lynch had entered the building.

Adam took a second to imagine him, in his dirt-encrusted farm boots, red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Sweat on the nape of his neck. The big hand on the splashy clock was a fraction away from twelve. The therapist’s eyes were still on him, waiting.

‘The father wouldn’t see it as – a punishable act,’ said Adam. ‘He would understand. That people make mistakes, and break things. Because he loves the child, and he – he sees him as more than his mistakes.’

A drop of sweat fell from his hairline to the orange leather. The therapist looked at him for a while, then nodded.

‘Well, Mr Parrish,’ she said, smiling and holding out a hand. ‘I’ll see you next week.’

Ronan was lounging against the apricot-painted wall of the lobby with a milkshake in each hand. He shoved one wordlessly at Adam, and at the same time lunged to kiss him, teeth clashing teeth. He pulled away and demanded,

‘Want your present?’

Adam nodded, and Ronan handed him a glass sphere, small enough to fit in his palm. Inside was a miniature and perfectly realistic ocean; the water was dark turquoise, with little white-capped waves ruffled up by the wind; seagulls flew and ducked in an impossible breeze. As Adam watched, a small fishing boat phased out of the glass and trundled over to the other side, then melted away again.

‘Sea-globe,’ Ronan said.

Adam was quiet on the way home, tilting the sea-globe around in his lap. No matter how fast he turned it, the ocean stayed perfectly stable and parallel to the ground.

‘She any good today?’ said Ronan impatiently.

‘Fine.’

‘You actually tell her shit this time?’

Adam looked out the window. ‘This is ridiculous.’

Other people, normal people, could handle therapists. Other people could sit in a bright red room with a stranger and smilingly tell her all of their secrets.

Ronan was negotiating a turn, but at the same time his hand floated easily off the steering wheel, and scrabbled for Adam’s. His palm was rough and warm.

‘I’m not going to find anyone to suit me, Ronan.’ He ground his teeth. ‘I want to stop.’

There was a silence. Adam pulled his hand away from Ronan’s and dug his fingernails into his wrist. He thought: this is my third therapist in two months. I’ve burned through so much fucking money.

‘If that’s what you want.’

And Adam looked at Ronan’s profile, the furrowed brow, and remembered why he had decided to sign up for this shit in the first place.

‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘I’ll try one more.’

‘Okay. One more. Then we’ll stop,’ Ronan said staunchly.

That _we_ got to Adam, still. Sometimes he felt like he’d been holding up a boulder, and now suddenly there was someone beside him, holding it too. So if he stumbled, or fell, there was someone here to make sure it didn’t fall.

But even strong arms got tired. Adam rolled the sea-globe back and forth down his lap. Once again, he had the sudden impulse to speak, but once again, he found he could not.


	2. Summer

The first time Adam slept with Ronan had gone differently to how he had expected. Adam should probably have predicted that Ronan Lynch couldn’t be predicted.

The first unexpected thing was that they had both been sober. When Ronan got drunk, he sometimes sucked hickeys into Adam’s neck, ground his hips up against Adam’s until they were both panting. A couple of times, the friction and the closeness had gone on so long it was almost unbearable, but Adam, ever-cowardly, never did anything about it, and for some reason, Ronan didn't either.

A couple of times they’d even fallen into same bed, hands intertwined, and yet – nothing happened. Adam worried that something was the matter. Maybe Ronan wasn’t attracted to him that way, or maybe he came off – sexually unavailable, or something. 

He’d thought about it, of course. How it might go. He’d imagined it rough and animalistic, then clumsy and awkward. Whenever he thought it might be about to happen, doubts crowded in, whispery and fragile. And always he tried to shove the anxiety aside. _Just fucking do it. You coward._

Once – one quiet, cool night – they’d all had pizzas at Gansey’s, and he and Ronan had come back to the Barns in the early morning. Ronan had been wasted and sweet-mouthed, Adam still stained with grease and sweat from work, and they had come very close. Ronan pressing Adam to the wall, breaths misting against breaths. And Adam had finally, finally made the leap, tangled his hand in Ronan’s hand and guided it down to the fly of his  jeans.

But Ronan pulled his hand away. It felt to Adam like they’d been going a hundred miles an hour and Ronan was braking before the curve.

They didn’t talk about it in the morning.

The following Friday, Adam slid out from two hours’ work cramped under a Volkswagen to see the hot afternoon had faded to one of those soft, purplish-pink summer’s dusks, and Ronan’s BMW was idling on the street.

Adam waved, and Ronan got out to open the car-door for him, which was weird. Weirder still was that Ronan was wearing a blindingly white shirt, collar stiff, top two buttons undone, and he smelt smooth and sharp – some kind of unfamiliar cologne. He barely spoke all the way back to Adam's apartment. 

‘Better clean yourself up,’ he told Adam roughly once they’d pulled up to the curb, ‘we’re going out.’

‘All right,’ said Adam, bemused. Ronan didn’t seem inclined to reveal any more information, so Adam ran upstairs, showered quickly, shaved, then, on impulse, put on his most expensive shirt, a dark, deep navy silk. His heart was racing lightly as he walked to the car, but not in a bad way. He'd come to like Ronan's surprises.

Ronan looked him up and down slowly, then looked away and narrowed his eyes, said, ‘'Kay. Let’s go.’

They drove to the Barns, walked out into the new evening. Adam, from the corner of his eyes, noticed a jump in Ronan’s jaw as he clenched and unclenched it. Once Ronan’s eyes widened, like he could see something coming in the distance, but when Adam looked there was nothing but the trees and fields.

‘Good day at school?’ said Ronan abruptly.

‘In second period someone pushed a desk out of the window,’ Adam said. ‘How was yours?’

‘Fine.’

‘Get much further with the lavender?’

‘Oh,’ said Ronan, in a very bad imitation of casual, ‘here’s our ride.’

And, hovering like a whisper in the air: a see-through glider-plane, glassy and gossamer, with wings like a motionless dragonfly’s. Rather than a cockpit, there were two deep indents on top of the fuselage.

At Ronan’s impatient gesture, Adam sat in one of the indents. It was smooth, like the inside of a seashell. He could smell night jasmine on the breeze. He felt impossibly out of his depth.

Ronan sat beside him and skimmed his palm from left to right over the translucent dashboard, illuminating a trail of glowing circles. The plane made a sound that sounded like leaves rustling, and they began to rise.

Once they were floating above the trees, Ronan guided them through a gentle turn. They were approaching a small cloud hovering in the air, too perfect to be real.

‘Wait a sec,’ said Ronan, his concentration intent, and stopped the glider beside the cloud, then scrambled out and leapt onto it.

Adam almost shouted – but Ronan hadn’t fallen.

‘Oh, holy fuck,’ Adam said, feeling his heart sprint in his chest, steadying himself on Ronan’s gaze. He gave a breathless laugh.

Ronan, standing on the cloud, cracked a triumphant half-smile. Then his face returned to its deadly solemn expression.

‘Come on,’ he said gently, extending a hand, and Adam took it. The cloud felt spongy and firm underfoot.

Fingers tangling with Adam’s, Ronan waved his free hand. Glowing flickering lights lit up the nearby sky around them. Like frozen fireflies. Miniature stars.

‘Can I touch one?’ said Adam.

‘Yeah,’ said Ronan, stepping closer. He nuzzled Adam’s neck as Adam reached out to the nearest star, passed his fingers through it. It felt like sort of like a candle flame, only just warm; and slightly ticklish. Ronan dipped his head and kissed his collarbone. A shiver ran down Adam’s spine.

He turned and circled his hands lightly around Ronan’s waist, pulling him closer, then trailed a hand over the rough stubble on his jaw, and kissed him softly. He felt Ronan’s lashes brush his cheek as he closed his eyes, felt him pull back and take a deep breath in. Then Ronan kissed him back, hard and rough and hungry. His hand grasped the back of Adam’s hair, where it was getting too long, pulled him closer, while the other fisted in his shirt. They finally drew away, both gasping a little.

‘You like it?’ Ronan murmured, gesturing vaguely at the scene.

‘Yeah,’ said Adam instantly. ‘Yes.’

He wanted to ask, ‘Is this why you've been so busy all week?’ but he didn’t, because he was scared to ruin it. Everything felt unreal and breakable.

Ronan smiled, teeth like the flash of a sword. He was so beautiful just now, Adam thought; slightly nervous, expression when he looked at Adam a little dazed, vulnerable, but burning underneath.

That look in his eyes, just for Adam. It was too good for Adam. But maybe just for tonight, he’d let himself forget. 

‘I wanted,’ Ronan said, panting, moving closer, and he seemed torn between his desires to talk and to touch Adam, stopped speaking to press kisses to his collarbone, into his his hair, his hands were running desperately, hungrily all over Adam's shoulders and body, he broke away to kiss him several more times on the lips, now the eyelashes, now the ear, now his collarbone again – then he seemed to remember he had been about to speak.

‘I wanted it to be –’ Ronan said breathlessly, ‘I mean, I didn’t want it to be just some night.’

He paused in his obsessive kissing of Adam to look at him, questioning.

‘It’s not,’ said Adam. Then he paused, and added, stiffly, ‘Thank you.’

It wasn’t the right thing to say for the moment, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He didn't feel right – couldn’t take it all in – that Ronan had likely spent a week on this, maybe longer – had apparently taken a whole day off work today to get it ready; his mind slid away from believing it.

‘So you – uh – you wanna sit down?’ said Ronan, jiggling his leg, and Adam realised that the only explanation was that Ronan was nervous.

He guessed that made sense. Virginity. Big deal. Still, not like Ronan. Adam sat down beside him, took his hand, kissed him slow and soft again.

‘Hey,’ he said, and it was a lot easier now that he understood. ‘You’re fucking amazing.’

He glanced down over the edge and saw how high up they were. He felt drunk, but not alcohol drunk. Alcohol made Adam feel messy and jagged and out of control. Now he felt like he was floating bubbles in a champagne glass. There was a soft, almost ticklish feeling in his heart, an airiness in his head. It felt like he’d somehow shaken all the weight off, just for a moment.

Ronan grabbed his hands, looking so desperately serious that Adam had to kiss him again. He brought a hand up to tuck a lock of Adam’s hair behind his ear, and Adam could feel that his fingers were trembling.

He reached out to touch Ronan’s cheek with his left hand, but Ronan caught it before he could, brought Adam’s knuckles to his lips.

‘It’s okay,’ Adam whispered, a laugh in his breath. ‘I mean, it’s just – me.’

Ronan looked at him helplessly for a few seconds, then moved forward, pressed his mouth to Adam’s jawline, then moved, kissing him hard, too hard, but Adam wanted it too hard, wanted it all to be too much.

Ronan drew away, panting, eyes seeking Adam’s anxiously, but Adam said,

‘It’s okay–’ he smiled, easily, and moved Ronan’s hand down to where he was growing hard. Ronan moaned, palmed him, and said, clumsily,

‘I want to – I want it to be good for you,’ and Adam ran soft hands down his back, and Ronan stroked him and asked, roughly,

‘S’that good?’

‘Yeah,’ Adam moaned loudly, unable to control himself, then felt his face flush.

But Ronan now was kissing down his throat desperately, murmuring, ‘Parrish – Adam,’ like he was turning Adam upside down.

‘I want to taste you,’ Ronan said, and when Adam made a low, broken sound, Ronan looked cockier for a second, and said, in a voice much more like his old self, ‘Wanna taste your cock, Parrish.'

When Adam murmured his assent, Ronan rucked his shirt up, licked a filthy line down Adam’s trembling, bare stomach.

And then his mouth was on Adam and it was all too much, too good, everywhere, unbearably hot, impossibly gentle, being covered in a blanket woven of egyptian silk and fire.

And everywhere Ronan’s hands touched him felt like warmth and light, and how was Ronan so good at this? It was unfair, seeing as they were both new to it, and now, too quickly, Adam was gone, over the edge, totally out of control, crying out.

He felt himself shaking. But Ronan was there to bring him down from it, kissing him. He tasted salt, and realised. That was –

It should be gross, right? He was too overwhelmed to think about it. Ronan was now kissing him long and unbreaking, almost like he was trying to make up for the time he had spent away from Adam's mouth. He opened his eyes and looked for Ronan’s, illuminated in the scant light. Ronan looked ferocious and desperate and about to break.

Adam wasn’t brave enough to – to – with his mouth, yet – knew he would get that wrong. But Ronan seemed to like his hand there, moaned a lot, and Adam rolled him onto his back midway through, and thought briefly about how the cloud was a good idea, because you could almost forget it was there, it felt like it was just them, hot skin on skin, burning in the sky, and and how amazing to think that he was about to get Ronan off, Adam was going to make Ronan Lynch come. And Ronan was making all these little fucking desperate noises.

‘You sound so fucking hot,’ Adam said, finally feeling more like himself, more in control again. And he was was ablaze, because look, this thing he’d been wanting so bad but so afraid of – it was easy.

Why had he been scared – why had either of them? For this? He stroked Ronan harder, loving the feel of his length in his hand. It was as easy and natural as running down a hill.

‘I wanna do this with you all the time,’ he said roughly.

‘Okay, okay, you can, whatever, we’ll fuck constantly, at the bank, in the supermarket,’ said Ronan breathlessly, ‘just _c’mere,’_ and he yanked him down ferociously, kissing him and kissing him, his own hand covering Adam’s on himself until he felt Ronan coming all over Adam’s hand and his stomach.

Then Ronan was quiet, breathing hot into Adam’s neck, and pulling him close into him. Adam felt animal, burrowing in for warmth, raw and vulnerable, seeking only this. Ronan kissed Adam like he couldn’t help it; over and over and over, his neck and jaw and hair.

‘Think I’m falling asleep,’ said Adam. The little lights of the dream-stars were going sweet and hazy.

‘Sleep, then.’

Ronan’s hands tightened slightly around Adam, encircling him. He breathed Ronan in, the honest smell of him. There was this blooming feeling in Adam’s stomach that seemed to be overwhelming everything. He swam into sleep.


	3. Fall

It was a honeyish kind of fall afternoon. They had gone out for a walk on impulse – it had turned out that walking lay in the centre of the venn diagram of their interests, as movement always calmed Adam, and Ronan was a natural pacer. And both of them got it – what it meant to be quiet, in even the most ordinary forest, and feel it breathe around you, close and calm; like being with someone who loved you. As the light had begun to fade, they'd been about to turn back, but then they'd turned a corner and come across a rickety bridge with peeling blue paint that looked distinctly unsafe.

Ronan, inevitably, had bounded straight on to it. Midway he'd stopped to lean over and look at the meandering river below. Adam looked too, from his safer position – the water was dark and deep, studded with several large, pale boulders. Ronan hoisted himself up to sit on the barrier, legs swinging. When Adam cautiously crossed over to him, Ronan suddenly tipped upside down, hooked his knees over the barrier, dangling himself over the river.

‘Look, Parrish, no hands.'

Adam said, 'Show-off.' 

He casually positioned himself so he could get a good look at the view, and also grab both of Ronan's legs if he fell.

After a while, Ronan swung himself over to the safe side of the barrier, landed heavily, bumped his shoulder to Adam's, and kissed him very soft on the cheek. He was glowing from the blood-rush. Behind him, the sky was going tangerine.

Ronan said something that sounded like, ‘Wanna play poo sticks?’

Adam wrinkled his nose. ‘What?’

Ronan frowned, then his face cleared in realisation.

‘Pooh, like Winnie the.’

‘I’ve never seen it,’ Adam said dismissively. He had a vague memory of some cartoons – a hyperactive tiger and a nervous, unidentified pink thing.

‘I mean the books. A. A. Milne?’ said Ronan.

‘Is that the bear’s name?’

_‘Parrish.’_

Adam rolled his eyes. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t read the picture books, Lynch.’

'They're fucking _classics._ I'm lending one to you.'

So Adam learned how to play Poohsticks. He didn’t know if it really qualified as a game, but he found himself grow deeply invested in beating Ronan anyway. It was a neck-and-neck competition for a while, but then Adam found this strange, twisty, whorled old stick that proved unbeatable.

‘Better than drag racing,’ Adam told Ronan, after winning four times in a row, and Ronan almost cracked a smile, then his face suddenly contorted.

‘Can’t _believe_ you haven’t read Winnie the Pooh.’

He swung himself back onto the creaky bridge barrier, raised his head to the trees and hollered. ‘You don’t even know who Eeyore is!’

Birds flew terrified out of the branches. Adam said, consolingly, ‘Hey, I’m sure Eeyore’s great,’ and stretched up to plant an awkward, messy kiss on the side of Ronan’s mouth. Ronan turned his head to kiss him fully, and also took the opportunity to reach down and roughly squeeze Adam’s ass.

‘I wish you could skip work tomorrow, and we could just spend all day here,’ said Ronan.

‘You talking to my ass?’ said Adam, but he pressed his face into the crook of Ronan’s neck.

‘Hey,’ said Ronan, fingers playing over Adam’s knuckles. ‘What if we went together?’

‘Where?’

He jerked his head in the direction of civilisation. ‘Therapy.’

‘Like couples counselling?’ said Adam blankly.

‘No,’ Ronan scoffed. ‘But we need some after that Monopoly game.’

Adam maybe got... slightly competitive in Monopoly. Slightly.

‘No,’ Ronan continued, ‘like, uh, maybe.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Just. You go and I'm – there too. Moral support. You know, if you wanted,’ he said.

His lashes were making triangle shadows on his cheeks.

Had Ronan noticed that Adam was weird after therapy sessions? He tried hard not to alter his behaviour in any way, but inside he always felt pathetically weak.

Therapy together would be awkward, boring for Ronan probably, and no counsellor would agree to it without hiking up the price anyway. Adam was opening his mouth to dismiss the suggestion. Then he thought of going into a new therapist’s alone, and then of the warmth and sturdiness of Ronan’s body, and found himself saying,

‘Yeah. Okay. We could try it.’

Ronan looked up in surprise. ‘Yeah?’ he said.

He looked so thrown and hopeful that Adam nodded and smiled, and climbed up onto the barrier himself. It groaned and made a _crick-crick-crick_ sound. He swung himself into Ronan’s lap, straddling him, nose-to-nose. Ronan grunted and tightened his grip around Adam.

‘Be careful,’ he said chidingly, and Adam laughed in disbelief.


	4. Summer

Adam woke up. He registered bone-deep warmth, and then a swooping feeling of lightness. He found he had been sleeping curled up against Ronan’s back, one arm flung over Ronan possessively. 

He realised where they were, and gave a soft laugh.

Ronan mumbled and turned himself over, pressed his face grumpily into Adam’s collarbone. Adam caught: ‘–laughing at?’

‘We’re on a cloud,’ Adam said.

‘Observational skills that’ll get you into Yale, babe,’ muttered Ronan, throwing a heavy arm around his neck and mumbling his way back into sleep. That was odd – he knew Ronan couldn’t usually go back to sleep once he’d woken; but then again, he didn’t usually sleep on clouds.

Adam examined himself, his mind and heart, carefully. He was relieved to see that nothing seemed to have changed within himself – despite what they said about sex making you clingy and fragile. If Ronan up and left tomorrow, for example, Adam thought he would probably be totally fine.

When the sun eventually came out full force, Ronan sat bolt upright, raising a fist like he was going to try fight it.

Instead he crankily, clumsily got to his feet. His eyes were still apparently closed as he gestured to Adam to get into the plane. Luckily he opened them a crack before they took off. He still hadn't said good morning.

'Sleep okay?' Adam tried.

Ronan just grunted.

They landed beside the house, and Ronan turned the whispers off.

‘What’re you up to today?’ he asked Adam, not looking at him. He seemed now impossibly casual, watching at his hand playing across the dashboard, making the circles glow and then fade again.

‘Studying.’

‘So predictable, Parrish,’ said Ronan. Adam almost thought he sounded turned-on, but that made no sense. ‘You could do it at the Barns.’ He was still looking down at the dashboard.

The dreaminess of being in the sky was evaporating. Ronan was looking so sort of distant, untouchable, not at all how he’d been last night. All the things Ronan had muttered to him  while he was touching him – and the Ronan now – they were like an equation Adam couldn’t put together.

His heartbeat was all ruffled.

Ronan still wasn’t looking up.

‘I need to get books,’ Adam said. ‘The library’s quietest now. Um, thanks for last night,’ and he leaned in and kissed Ronan quickly, chastely, on the mouth. His lips were surprisingly soft – Adam could feel how chapped his own were in contrast. Ronan gave a grunt of surprise, but still managed to kiss him back for a second before he pulled away.

Adam was speeding down the motorway when a text buzzed in his pocket.

_– when can i see u again adam_

Adam waited until he'd gathered a large stack of books and a make-your-own-cappuccino to reply.

_– Didn’t Gansey want help with his garden tomorrow?_

Instantly, three dots appeared on his screen.

_– yea. he mentiond he wants u to mow the lawn shirtless_

_– Fuck off_

_– yea. weird af. but i think ud hurt his feelings if u didnt :\_

Adam turned his phone onto Airplane Mode.

He didn't switch it back – he didn't need distractions right now. Exams were a week away. All through the day, though, he kept wanting to suddenly – laugh, like a crazy person. _I fucked Ronan Lynch on a cloud last night._ It was just the oxytocin or whatever. He needed to stop thinking about it so much.


	5. Fall

Adam consciously resisted drumming his fingers on the window as he watched the fields of grass spin past. He saw kids playing on a roadside, birds fluttering off a telegraph wire at some unknowable disturbance. He was grateful for Ronan’s seething D&B music, the way it numbed his mind a little. He could see, from the way his fingers clenched and unclenched around the wheel, that Ronan was nervous, too. 

‘Where even is this place?’ Adam said.

‘Just another few miles,’ said Ronan. ‘It’ll be worth it,’ he added, sounding confident.

Over the last week, Ronan had been asking Adam a lot of questions.

‘Does it have to be a woman?’ he’d demanded randomly over the phone.

‘No,’ Adam had answered, hearing his voice echo down the library stairwell, feeling instantly defensive.

‘Okay, but would you prefer a woman?’ Ronan said.

And Adam had hesitated. And Ronan had, somehow, understood.

Now Ronan pulled into the driveway of a little cottage with green shutters. There were lots of flowers, all in various shades of blue and purple, in the garden. The breeze made them dance in strange synchronised waves; Adam chose to stare at them for a while in lieu of undoing his seatbelt.

‘You didn’t dream this place, did you?’ he said suddenly. Ronan snorted.

‘Imagine a therapist from my head, Parrish. She’d crack a minute in and sing nursery rhymes. I just did my research.’

Once, Adam wouldn’t have thought Ronan even knew the meaning of research.

They'd arrived a little early. They walked slowly up the crackling gravel path, Adam in front of Ronan. The door had an old brass knocker, with a little gargoyle face that was more goofy than threatening. Adam lifted it and let it fall. 

After a second, the door opened. Smiling out at them was someone who sort of looked like a generic suburban mom, with cropped, ash-blond hair, glasses, and bright blue capris.

‘Hello – you must be Adam and Ronan.' She extended a hand, and Adam took it – she had a surprisingly strong grip. 'I’m Stephanie.’

The therapy room Stephanie led them to was cool and breezy, painted white. It overlooked the purple flower garden. All of the windows were slightly ajar, letting a cool breeze tickle the gauzy curtains and ruffle the papers on Stephanie's desk.

Stephanie sat at her computer. 'Why don’t you sit down? I’ll be over in a second.’

They sank into the couch – made of rough, cream linen, and covered with fat cushions. Ronan reached out, very casually, and took hold of Adam’s hand. He ran his thumb lightly over Adam’s thumb.

Stephanie sat down opposite them, legs crossed.

‘Now, I won’t waste any of your time; I’d like to begin by chatting about your reasons for coming today, Adam. Ronan did mention a little about it over the phone, but I’d like to hear it from you, if that's all right.'

This part was a well-worn routine by now.

‘I was abused by my father,’ said Adam. He still couldn’t say it without thinking about the way he was changing in front of the therapist’s eyes. He hardened his voice a fraction. ‘Physically and emotionally. And I don’t want it to affect me – without me realising. I want to know more about what it’s done to me, what it’s – doing to me. And my – relationships.'

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘So. When Ronan called me and asked me to see both of you together – although it's unorthodox – I agreed. That's because abuse is a – a specialty of mine, I suppose. I’m a survivor myself.’

She said the last words briskly, and Adam looked up to check if he’d misheard. She looked so at ease. He noticed a silver wedding ring shining on her finger.

‘Are you?’ he said doubtfully.

‘Yes,’ she said, and in her eyes he thought he saw just the slightest hint of weariness. She turned to Ronan and smiled. ‘And you’re Adam’s boyfriend.’

‘Yep,’ grunted Ronan, in the ultra-charming voice he reserved for authority figures.

‘I usually conduct sessions one-on-one. I’ve explained why I’m making an exception. But It would still be helpful to me if you could explain why you want Ronan here, Adam. How you feel his presence will be helpful to you.’

Adam felt Ronan’s fingers tighten around his own.

‘I'm not good with – all this stuff. He thought it might help if he came,’ Adam said.

‘But why do _you_ want him here?’

Adam frowned.

‘Because… I guess... think it will help, too.’ He thought of the secret nestled in his chest. ‘Also, I think it’s – I think he should know more about it.'

‘Right,’ she said, nodding. ‘Sure. So, I was thinking about how we might orchestrate this.’

‘You can pretend I’m not here,’ said Ronan gruffly.

‘And that’s fine, if you'd prefer,’ she said. ‘But I thought, perhaps, since you _are_ here, we could try including you. Since I imagine the effects of Adam’s abuse are probably affecting you, too. That's, unfortunately, how it tends to work.'

Hearing it from another therapist might’ve made Adam feel tiny, like a bug being examined under a microscope. It was different, somehow, knowing Stephanie spoke from personal experience. He looked at her silver wedding ring again. Then he looked up and saw pictures of blond children on the walls. Laughing, cartwheeling, hanging upside down from a jungle gym. His heart gave an unexpected jolt. 

‘Yes,’ said Ronan, sitting up. ‘Okay. What do I do.'

‘There’s nothing you have to do in particular,’ she said. ‘Listening to Adam with your full attention would be a start. You might find out things about him you didn’t know before. And you might have questions – if you do, please don't hesitate to jump in. Sometimes, it might even just be the two of you talking. Are you both all right with that?’

‘Yes,’ said Ronan instantly.

Adam could feel his heart racing, and he knew Ronan would be able to see on his face he was freaking out. He had known this was going to happen. He just needed to, to stop thinking about Ronan sitting there, all – caring and shit.

‘Yes,’ Adam said eventually.

‘Good,’ Stephanie said. ‘Let’s get started, then.’


	6. Summer

Adam decided to walk to Gansey’s place on Sunday, even though he knew it would make him late. He'd been secretly tape-recording classes all term, and now scrolled through his phone and selected a particularly racy one:  _Latin irregular verb conjugation._  For some reason, despite being late, he found himself dawdling the whole way. He started pulling random leaves off hedges and trees, tearing them to pieces.

Then he heard a familiar, groaning whirr, followed by a tire screech and two beeps.

He turned to see Ronan, his elbow on the window-frame of his BMW. He was wearing his favourite leather jacket and these black, mirrory sunglasses Adam had never seen before – probably dreamed-up.

He lowered them and winked. ‘Wanna ride, gorgeous?’

Adam got in. ‘Kinda feel like I’m in a low-budget version of _Grease.'_

Saying that, as it turned out, was a mistake.

Because of course Ronan had the entire _Grease_ soundtrack on his phone. As they pulled into Gansey’s street, all the windows down, Adam could swear the leaves of all the nearby trees were vibrating to Olivia Newton-John’s voice.

‘You better shape up,’ Ronan was singing, ‘cause I need a man, and my heart is set on – youuuu.’ He pointed at Adam.

‘Ronan,’ Adam said pointedly, ‘Gansey’s neighbourhood is full of elderly people with weak hearts.’

‘Wouldn’t be the worst way to go,’ said Ronan, but he turned the volume down.

He must’ve noticed that Adam’s ears had gone red during that last song, though, because he was grinning insufferably all the way up the drive.

They found Gansey shirtless in the middle of his vast lawn, pushing an iron reel mower that had to be at least a hundred years old. He was wearing headphones, and hadn’t yet noticed them. Sweat and a white sheen of sun-screen made his back glitter in the sun.

‘Huh,’ said Ronan. ‘You think I'm semi-telepathic?’

Gansey turned a corner, noticed them, and yanked off his headphones.

‘Hello!’ he shouted, waving enthusiastically and dropping the mower – it made a hideous clank. ‘Blue and Noah’ll be out in a second, they’re making smoothies.’

They spent the day toiling under the sun and retreating onto the shaded porch to drink various Blue-and-Noah smoothie experiments. The first batch was a blend of passionfruit, orange juice and chocolate ice cream, which all of them liked. The second was vanilla ice cream, fresh mint and licorice allsorts, which everyone but Noah pushed aside.

Adam refused to try any subsequent batches, because he’d gone into the kitchen to get a glass of water and noticed Blue guiltily try to hide a bottle of Worcestershire sauce behind her back.

When they'd finished the afternoon's work, they all stood back to survey the garden. Noah was slurping what Adam thought was his third glass of mint-allsort shake.

‘It looks... nice?’ Gansey said uncertainly.

The lawn looked very good – that was mostly thanks to Blue, because Gansey’s arms had given out a third of the way through. And Adam thought he and Ronan had made good work of the rose bushes, mostly because Adam had done exactly what Ronan told him to. But whatever Noah had been doing to the hedges slightly – undercut the whole effect.

Their contemplative silence was shot through with Gansey’s high-pitched yelp – Ronan had snuck up on him with the hose. He now chased Gansey around the flowerbeds, drenching his shirt in swathes, both of them giggling like little kids.

Adam watched for a while, then slunk off to the shade of the big oak to get some more study in. He’d been planning to start two hours ago – but he’d been weak and let himself get distracted. He tried to speed-read to make up for lost time, but his mind felt all heavy, sun-drenched and slow – he kept reading the same line six or seven times.

He startled awake to find the textbook clasped to his chest; the light had gotten warmer and softer with as the late afternoon drew on. He heard laughter, and turned his head a little to see Ronan and Gansey lounging on the grass, a little way away from him.

Gansey’s head was propped up against Ronan’s stomach, his arm stretched up to point at the sky.

Adam didn’t move immediately for some reason, just watched through half-closed eyes.

‘Oh, bullshit,’ Ronan was saying, laughing.

‘It is,’ Gansey insisted. ‘See the tail?’

‘Where.’

‘There.’ Gansey’s fingertip gently traced the air. ‘You see?’

For a long time, Adam couldn’t stop looking at the way Gansey’s head was pillowed on Ronan’s stomach. Then he shook his head, very hard, and sat up against the tree and picked up his textbook again, found the right page. He’d fucked it up today, the study schedule. He would fix it, though – he’d just have to pull an all-nighter tonight.

‘Wanna come back to mine?’ Ronan asked Adam as they walked to his car.

Blue, Noah and Gansey were all still in the house, watching _Juno._ The sky was fading to a dim, dusty blue.

‘That’s okay,’ Adam said. ‘Study,’ he explained stiffly. It seemed impossible that only two days ago they had been floating together on a cloud. 

‘How ‘bout you drive us back to yours, then,’ Ronan suggested. ‘Get some stick practice in,’ he added, and grinned lewdly.

Adam nodded and walked to the drivers’ side.

It had been a while, but he remembered to lightly work the gas as he turned the ignition so it didn’t stall, then to press down on the clutch and brake before he switched into first. As they pulled smoothly away from the curb, Ronan whooped. Adam just concentrated on the road, scanning his mirrors for hazards. The engine was revving a little too fast. His hand went to the gearstick to switch to second. Ronan rested his hand atop his.

‘It’s okay,’ Adam said sharply, ‘I can do it myself.’

Ronan took his hand away and looked at him, but didn’t say anything.

‘You all right?’ Ronan asked, when Adam had successfully parked outside his apartment.

‘Fine,’ said Adam, opening the door.

‘Don’t I get a kiss goodbye?’ 

Adam rolled his eyes, but waited as Ronan got out and walked around. Ronan looked at him appraisingly.

‘Your nose is all sunburned, Parrish,' he said, then tugged him closer and kissed him, sloppily and with deep enthusiasm.

Adam let himself enjoy it for a few seconds. And then the thought arrived, like a jagged bolt of lightning –

_What if he’s so enthusiastic because –_

Feeling sick, he turned his head.

Ronan looked lost. He reached out for him, but Adam stepped back.

‘What’s wrong?’ 

‘Nothing.’

‘Parrish,’ said Ronan. ‘You’re pissed. Was it because I threw a muffin at you and called you a nerd?’ He frowned. ‘Can't be, I call you that all the time.’

As much as Adam didn’t want to talk about it, as much as he dreaded getting into a fight right now, he also couldn’t quite bear to have Ronan looking at him like that, all confused and well-meaning, while inside Adam was this – convulsive, poisonous mess. He’d made a promise to himself, that with Ronan, he’d always try to be honest.

It made perfect sense, he thought, his heart wrenching unbearably. Next to Gansey, Adam was, in almost every way it counted, a cheap knock-off. The sort of model you picked up, with a reluctant sigh, because you knew you couldn't afford the high-quality one.

‘You get on really well with Gansey lately.'

Ronan’s brow furrowed for a few seconds.

Then – ‘Shit, Parrish,’ he said, laughing, ‘are you _jealous?’_

Adam dug his fingernails into his palm.

Ronan saw his expression and stopped laughing instantly.

‘Oh, Adam,’ said Ronan.

‘Just – go, please.’

‘I don’t think of Gansey that way.’

‘Fuck off,’ said Adam, and he hated the way his voice sounded, trembling and thin. ‘I saw you today – you guys have your whole “BFF” thing–’

‘I didn’t know you even thought about this,’ Ronan said. All trace of laughter was gone from his eyes. He took Adam’s hand in his, uncurled the tight-clenched fist, and stroked slow circles over the palm.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Gansey’s not my type.’

‘Really?’ said Adam skeptically. ‘Model-handsome isn’t your type?’

Ronan raised an eyebrow, fingers stilled on Adam’s palm.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Is it _yours?’_

‘No.’

How could Adam explain Gansey had been all but pushed entirely out of his mind the moment Ronan put a trembling mouse into his hands?

‘I did find him attractive at first, before I got to know him,’ said Adam, trying to remember. ‘But now, when I look at him I just see – _Gansey.’_

Ronan snorted. ‘Same. Like, when I think of Gansey I just think of him always telling me I need to eat more greens, to “keep myself regular.”’ He grimaced.

But Adam again saw that sunlit image of Ronan spraying Gansey with the hose. Why was he unable to take anyone at their word? Why was he, at every turn of his life, expecting lies and hidden motives?

‘Model-handsome isn’t my type,’ Ronan explained, and he felt cool fingertips stroking his cheek, 'because I’m more into straight-up b-beautiful.’

His voice, smooth and steady, snagged on the final word.

Adam looked up in surprise. But he couldn’t be talking about Adam. He just – couldn't.

Before he could think, though, Ronan was kissing him again, much slower and more careful than before. He dipped his head and began to slowly, agonisingly, suck hickeys into Adam’s neck.

And with each second Adam felt his self-control melting away. 

Finally, he heard himself say, against all better judgement – ‘Want to come inside?’ 


	7. Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Characters discuss child abuse and its psychological effects.

‘I like her,’ Ronan declared, on the way home from the first session, and Adam had to agree.

Whereas the other therapists had seemed to him either slightly out of their depth, or supremely detached, Stephanie had felt _there;_ she had quietly understanding eyes, and she made bad jokes, and whenever Adam talked he had the sense that she was taking in every single word.

But sometimes, the _there_ –ness made it harder.

‘Did you believe the abuse was your fault?’ she asked at the second session.

Adam thought. ‘When I was very young. When I was, like, nine or ten, I think I started to realise it wasn't – supposed to be like that.’

‘Was there anything that catalysed the realisation?’

He nodded. ‘I had this teacher called Ms Waiker in fourth grade,’ he said. ‘She worked it out. I hid it pretty well from everyone else. It was different, then, to when I was older. My father was more careful. The bruises weren't in places people could see. '

Ronan made a small sound. Adam glanced at him, but he shook his head and gestured for Adam to keep going.

'I helped put up the chairs on the desks in Ms Waiker's class every day, and we’d just chat. About – dumb stuff – I remember I used to learn facts about whales to tell her, because I knew she liked whales. She was really nice. Once she – she told me I was one of the most determined students I’d ever taught, and that she knew I’d go far.’

He remembered the words very clearly, because he had recited them to himself on the way home, so he wouldn’t forget them. He'd felt like he was holding treasure in his hands.

‘Waiker was on to it,’ said Ronan, and Stephanie beamed over at him. Ronan had been nothing but gruff and sarcastic with Stephanie, so it was a surprise, how often she smiled at him. So few people liked Ronan from the offset that it was making Adam warm to her more.

‘And anyway, one day she was asking lots of questions and I sort of twigged that she was trying to get me to tell her what was going on at home and I – I stopped hanging out with her so much. But on my last day of class, she gave me a present. Two books.’

Stephanie said, ‘Wow. She sounds like a positive –’

‘What books?’ Ronan interrupted her.

Adam elbowed him, but Stephanie said, ‘Please,’ and gestured at Adam.

‘Uh,  _The Power of One_ and _To Kill a Mockingbird.’_

Ronan’s brow furrowed.

‘I guess they maybe weren't – age-appropriate,' said Adam, feeling deeply defensive of Ms Waiker, 'but they were good books.'

_First with your head, then with the heart._

Those characters had been so clear to him. He had dreamed of them often: Peekay and Doc, Geel Piet and Mrs Boxall, Scout and Jem and Boo Radley.

And Atticus Finch.

In _Mockingbird,_ he had first found a mirror of his father: Bob Ewell. And, standing bright and impossible opposite him, Atticus Finch. A man unlike any of the ones he had known in real life. Adam had used to imagine Atticus in his own room, sitting on the edge of his bed, telling him things. 

'You always have the choice to be better, Adam.'

When he’d met him, Gansey had reminded him a little of Atticus Finch.

‘They probably helped me,’ he said. ‘I think they helped me learn more about – normal.'

Ronan had taken out his phone, and was scrolling through it, scowling.

'This next question might be a tricky one, Adam, but it's important,' Stephanie said. 'Violence towards children can provoke feelings of anger in the abused children. And that anger can be a source of shame. It sometimes leads to kids imitating the patterns of their abusive parents–’

Adam’s heart was beating so hard he could hardly breathe. He'd thought he was prepared for this, this had been practically the whole reason he was here, why was he being so fucking pathetic?

He pulled his hand out of Ronan’s and stood up.

‘Adam?’

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to.’ He didn’t even finish the sentence before he felt like his lungs were giving way.

He walked outside and stood on the gravel footpath, breathing in the smell of coming rain, but his breath wouldn't come loose, kept sticking and catching.

He had tried so hard to be ready for it, he thought, but of course, when it came to the moment, he was as weak as ever.


	8. Summer

After their second time, neither of them seemed to be able to go very long without jumping each other.

Ronan kept pressing Adam against walls when they were alone in rooms and falling back onto couches and pulling Adam down on top of him; Adam's phone was constantly buzzing with dirty texts. It was all very inconvenient, as exam season had just begun.

‘You literally study twelve hours a day, you're allowed breaks,’ Ronan told him, whenever Adam mentioned this. 'Besides, sex makes you smarter.'

When Adam, deeply skeptical, looked this up on his phone, he was bewildered to find out it was true. Ronan smirked. 'So what say we bump your IQ up another point.'

And, seconds after Adam had walked in the door of the Barns after his first exam – English – Ronan had once more dropped to his knees and nosed against the fly of his jeans.

‘You don’t have to keep doing this for me,’ Adam gasped.

Ronan frowned and pulled off, confused for a second.

‘Wait, you think I’m being selfless?’ He laughed. ‘Nah, I just like sucking your dick, Parrish.’

‘Oh,’ said Adam, feeling himself go red. 

Then Adam had five whole days between Physics and Latin, so after he was done with Physics they ended up – staying up most of the night.

'Not that I'm complaining,' Adam said, when Ronan pulled his boxers down for the third time that night, 'I mean, I'm really not complaining, but I think you might have a sex addiction.'

‘Parrish addiction,’ Ronan mumbled around Adam’s cock.

Through all the fevers and the highs, Adam's hard-earned sense of independence wasn't as stable as he'd have liked it to be.

It was difficult to keep a safe amount of mental space sometimes. More difficult some times than others, like, when he got in from his last exam – Biology – all exhausted and fuzzy-brained, Ronan was instantly there, wrangling him onto on his back in the bed and pressing soft kisses down his stomach and stroking his face afterwards with the gentlest hands, all sweaty and dirt-stained from the farm.

And it was even more difficult, a couple nights after that, when Ronan fucked Adam properly for the first time (and oh, that achingly painful, vulnerable expression on Ronan's face, the thumbs stroking over Adam’s eyelids, the constant kisses, breathless questions – ‘This all right? Adam, you all right?’)

But just because he was a little off-balance didn't mean that he was going to start acting stupid.

*

'Read it to me,' Gansey's little cousin, Eloise, screeched, brandishing  _Grimms' Fairy Tales_ threateningly up at Ronan.

Eloise was five and golden-haired, and two hours after meeting Adam and Ronan she had decided she would keep them, and promptly trapped them in her playroom. The walls of the playroom had once been pastel yellow, although it appeared Eloise had been amending this poor design choice with her own acrylics. Through the window, Adam could see Blue lying against the red brick wall in Gansey's uncle's sunny garden, reading  _Middlemarch_ , and Gansey sleeping in her lap. She was stroking his head absently.

'Adam,' Ronan protested, 'tell Eloise to stop bossing me around.'

Adam thought for a moment, then said, 'I want you to read it to me, too.'

'Oh, come on,' Ronan said.

'Yes, Ronan! Read it,' Eloise ordered.

'Fine,' Ronan growled, and sat heavily on a purple beanbag.

‘Once upon a time,’ he bit out, sounding distinctly murderous, ‘there was a miller who was very poor, but had a beautiful daughter.'

Adam snorted, and Eloise glared reproachfully. 'Shh.'

‘Yeah, _shh_ ,’ said Ronan, cracking a grin. 'What’s your problem, Parrish?’

‘Nothing. Just hope they hire you for the audiobook.'

After a while, Eloise got bored of Ronan's heartfelt rendition of _Rumpelstiltskin_ and released them both to the wild. Ronan cheered up once he was free and in the sunshine, and instantly challenged Eloise to a game of catch. Adam sat down beside Blue, tipped his head back against the sun-warmed brick wall, and watched them bounding around the yard together. 

He could never quite stop being surprised by the feeling of safety, when it came over him like this. Not so long ago life had felt like nothing more than an endless series of running from things; from other people, from his own mind.

After twenty minutes of playing, Ronan and Eloise both collapsed next to Adam, chests rising and falling rapidly.

'Read to us?' Ronan said slyly, picking up the collection of fairytales _._ Adam took the book and chose a story.

'The emperor’s palace, ' he began, 'was the most beautiful thing in all the world.'

A silence fell as he read on. Gansey and Blue shuffled closer; even the ball of pure chaos that was Eloise grew quiet and large-eyed. Adam felt almost like a magician.

When he'd nearly reached the end of the story, Gansey's uncle crept out of the house and gave Adam a silent, desperate thumbs-ups, his eyebrows waggling crazily, like –  _Please don’t fucking stop, let me have an hour's silence, for once in my life._ So Adam kept going, all the way through three more fairy-tales.

It was getting dark when they drove home. They had all, save Adam, been drinking quite a lot of Gansey's uncle's strawberry champagne throughout the hot day. Gansey instantly fell asleep in the back of the BMW with his face smushed against the window, and Blue curled up on his lap. Ronan, having spent the most time awake, had drunk the most, which was why Adam was driving, and also why he had to keep slapping Ronan’s hand away from his ass. 

As Ronan giggled and clutched his slapped hand in mock-suffering, one of his eyebrows caught the light and gleamed glittery purple. Eloise had wanted Ronan to try her purple hair mascara at one point, but then they'd realised he had almost no hair, and Adam had thought they'd given up. But apparently at some point they had compromised with eyebrows.

Adam thought of Ronan piggy-backing Eloise in the yard, when they'd first arrived.

'Now, passengers, we're expecting some serious turbulence,' he'd shouted. 'Massive thunderstorm ahead. Buckle up.’ And he'd tipped her backwards, then forwards, and she'd screamed in delight and refused to leave Ronan's side from that moment onwards.

‘You’re good with kids,’ Adam said, glancing over.

‘Thanks,’ said Ronan softly.

Adam returned his eyes to the road. Ronan was strangely silent. He glanced over to see Ronan was still looking at him, expression complicated and inexplicable.

Later, kissing Adam through his orgasm, Ronan started – saying things to him. He did that sometimes, murmured a stream of compliments as he got Adam off.

‘She loved you, Parrish,’ he slurred. ‘ You think you’re awkward with kids but they always fuckin’ love you. You’d be such a good dad. Sometimes I think about that, about –’ and then he broke off into a murmur against his skin.

He’d never said anything like that before, never referred to their future, and he would never have been so honest if he hadn’t been a little drunk still. Adam wasn’t even sure he was aware of what he was saying, and he tried to tell himself it was just mooniness, it didn’t mean anything, it didn’t –

He’d made a promise to himself years ago, knuckles tight on the rim of a bathroom sink.  _I will never let myself become him._ He could daydream about Atticus Finch all he liked, but he knew his blood and his bones. He was a Ewell through and through.

Adam felt his heart beating fast and thought of blood and feathers, and a few seconds later he rolled out of bed.

‘Bathroom,’ he said abruptly. He locked the door behind him, breathing hard, then spent ten minutes over the sink, swallowing hard, pressing a damp cloth to his forehead.

‘Parrish?’ said a soft voice through the keyhole.

He heard himself say, in this gross, mean voice, his father’s voice: ‘Just leave me alone.’

‘Are you–’

‘I’m  _fine_.’

He could feel himself being awful and tense all the rest of that night. They were watching some movie with a bunch of kids in it, which was just perfect. He hadn't paid attention to what it was called or most of the story. He kept thinking of what Ronan had said and spacing out.

Ronan suddenly hit pause, and said, ‘Look, will you tell me what’s up or not?’

‘I’m fine,’ he snarled.

‘Bullshit. You’ve been weird all evening.’

He was talking a little louder than usual, maybe because he was still a little drunk. Nothing, still, nothing like the kind of drunk his father had got, but Adam found his frayed nerves stretched even further. He stood up and walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Ronan followed him.

‘Just, will you just use your words for once,' Ronan was saying.  'Don't you get it, I _want_  to know.’

_‘You don’t understand.’_

Ronan threw up his hands. ‘Don’t understand what, anger? Look who you’re _talking to._ I know anger.’

'No, you _fucking don't_. _'_

Ronan was friends with his anger, it was tamed, like a panther. It didn’t invade and destroy him like a forest fire.

Adam picked up the nearest item, a ceramic fruit bowl, dreamed and oceanic, turned away and hurled it against the wall. The fragments spread everywhere and he had the sensation of separating from himself.

_Well done, Parrish. You’ve done it._

He looked back, panting, expecting – he didn’t know. To see his own expression mirrored ugly in Ronan’s face, or the same fear-hatred he had seen in Blue, or worst of all, fragmented distrust.

Instead he saw Ronan with a furrowed brow, scowling at him, but otherwise – calm. They stood there in silence, and Ronan did nothing but cross his hands and part his feet slightly, grounding himself.

Adam felt like – an exploded bomb, or a fucking sewage pipe that had burst all over the room. The shards lay between them, the purple remains of some smashed dream fruit oozing across the floor.

‘You gonna break any more shit, then?’ Ronan said, disdainful.

‘No,’ said Adam, breathing hard, and the anger still hadn’t left him, it stayed like bile in his veins. ‘I’m going – for a walk.’

‘Fine.’

He slammed the door hard behind him and walked for a long time. It always took so long, so fucking unbelievably long, for the anger to leave his system.

It always wanted to stay.

Ronan was waiting for him on the couch when he came back in – not on his phone, not reading, just sitting there. He looked up when the door opened, held Adam's gaze, and said nothing, 

‘I’m sorry,’ seemed trite, a useless platitude. He dully said it anyway.

‘S’okay,’ said Ronan, and patted the couch next to him. ‘C’mere.’

Adam stayed in the doorway.

‘I’ve thought about it,’ he said, level, ‘and I think I need to see a therapist.’

‘Okay,’ said Ronan, ‘just, come here. Please,’ he added, and his voice shook.

Adam crossed the room slowly. When he sat down, Ronan leaned over kissed him, one hot hand slipping under Adam’s shirt to where the skin was cold from outside, warming him up.

‘I’m sorry,’ Adam said again, pulling away. ‘If I scared you. I’m sorry.’

Ronan snorted. ‘Parrish. Don't be stupid. Declan threw a chair at my head when I was six.’ He pointed at the scar on his forehead.

Adam ran his hand lightly over the scar, and felt hot nausea rising up from his stomach to his throat.

‘Adam,’ said Ronan gently. ‘Adam. I can handle you.'

But Ronan didn’t  _know_  him. He thought he did, but –

‘I’ll never hurt you,’ Adam said. ‘Never.’ Anything, anything rather than that.

‘I believe you,’ said Ronan softly, and kissed Adam’s temple. ‘But I’m just saying, I can defend myself.’

‘That’s fucked, Ronan,’ Adam said, feeling sicker still, backing away from him. ‘What the fuck are you implying. You can handle abuse? What the hell is wrong with you?’

'I'm not saying that. But you’re not an abuser,’ said Ronan, with utter certainty. 

Adam rubbed his eyes, hard. How could he be so fucking trusting?  _So fucking stupid,_ a little shadow voice corrected.

‘Okay,’ he said shakily. ‘I think, yeah. I think I have to talk to someone about this.’

‘If you want,’ said Ronan, and his voice was so goddamn gentle Adam couldn’t stand it.

Ronan didn’t mention kids again at all after that night, and that was just another one of the things Adam tried not to think about.


	9. Fall

Adam pressed his forehead against the cool bark of a birch tree in Stephanie's garden. There was almost no wind; all the purple flowers in the garden were limp and still under the dark, clouded sky.

He heard a sound, and turned to see Ronan had followed him out. He was relieved to find he was not alone.

‘I just don’t think I can do this,' Adam said.

‘Okay.’

‘I mean, therapy. I just – I’m too fucked up.’

For a moment, he let himself give in to despair. There was no fixing him, after all. How stupid, to have briefly thought otherwise. ‘I can’t do it, Ronan,’ he said again.

‘Okay,’ said Ronan again. ‘Adam – I’m not gonna make you you do a damn thing you don’t want to. We can drive away right now and never come back if that’s what you want.’

‘Yes,’ said Adam.

That seemed to be the only clear thing that he did want any more. Through him were the cracks, jagged and inescapable, but for now he could get into a car with Ronan and ride away, have his sunset for a little while longer.

But that strange blurriness, the sense of not being right, that had begun on Stephanie's couch only worsened on the drive home. Ronan glanced over at him every few seconds, and then, uncharacteristically, turned his music right down when he noticed Adam put a hand to his throbbing head.

‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

‘I don’t know,’ said Adam, and his throat rasped slightly. ‘Maybe hay-fever.’

‘Hm,’ said Ronan, studying him, and a couple miles later he swerved abruptly into a shopping centre.

He was gone a while; Adam waited in the car, watching the first drops of rain splash against the windshield, and trying to decide if he was just dehydrated and pathetic, or if he might have caught a cold or something. He was also trying not to think about what had happened before, with Stephanie, and hoping Ronan wouldn’t ask about it.

Ronan jumped back in the car with a grocery bag stuffed so full that it seemed to be defying the laws of physics by remaining intact, and a brown paper package which he threw, with a heavy thud, in the back seat.

‘Let’s go home,’ he said.

Once they were back at the Barns, Ronan told Adam he could pick a movie and went off with his mysterious grocery bag. He came out a few minutes later with a mug of hot lemon and honey, and groaned when he found out Adam had chosen a documentary about the cocoa industry. 

Adam fell asleep midway through the film and woke up in Ronan’s bed, unable to remember how he had got there, with a pulsing headache and a fever. It felt like one half of his throat had been removed with paint stripper. Outside, rain was still falling, hard and steady.

Ronan was there too, legs wrapped in a blanket,  _reading a novel._ He hadn’t seen Ronan Lynch reading a novel since... no. Actually. He had never seen Ronan Lynch reading a novel.

‘Ronan?’ he croaked. ‘Wha’re you reading?’

Ronan turned to him. ‘You look like a fucking swamp creature.’

‘Fuck you too,’ Adam said, voice giving way on the second syllable.

Ronan tossed the book lightly on Adam’s stomach – ‘Oof,’ – and went out of the room. It was _To Kill a Mockingbird._ A minute later, Ronan came back in and handed Adam a packet of paracetamol and a glass of water. Adam knew the Barns didn't have a first aid kit. 

'Did you buy all this stuff on the way home?' Adam said, popping out a couple pills. How had he realised Adam was sick so much sooner than Adam had?

Ronan shrugged, said, 'Packet says no more than two of those every four hours,' and did a Fosbury Flop onto the bed.

‘You like this?’ said Adam, tapping the cover of  _To Kill A Mockingbird._

‘Dull as shit so far, to be honest, Parrish,’ said Ronan. ‘You’d better hope for your sake it improves.’

‘For my sake?’

‘Yeah, ‘cause I’m going to finish it, and complain to you the whole fucking way.’

After that, Adam fell asleep again. He woke up in darkness, shivering and miserable. He turned to see Ronan was, somehow, still beside him – torch in hand, book on knee, scowl clearly illuminated.

‘Did it improve yet?’ Adam croaked.

Ronan frowned, seeming to come out of a reverie.

‘Not much. You okay? There’s water on the beside table if you want it. Fucking hell, you’re shivering,’ he said, reaching out to touch Adam’s forehead. Adam wanted to close his eyes and turn into his hand, but he didn’t.

‘I’m okay,’ said Adam, but Ronan had already thrown the book carelessly aside, probably bending most of the pages, and clambered under the duvet. He wrapped his arms around Adam and pressed a soft kiss to his temple.

‘Don’t kiss me, dumbass,’ Adam said hoarsely, turning his head away. Ronan licked his cheek.

‘Mm, germy,’ he said.

Adam grimaced. ‘You’re so foul.’

Ronan smirked and tried to press a kiss to the corner of Adam’s mouth. Adam yelped and pushed him away, . The movement made his head scream sirens.

‘Can you maybe get me some – some more paracetamol?’ Adam croaked. He hated having to ask, but Ronan seemed eager to comply. He came back with a new packet of pills, which turned out to be ibuprofen, and another honey and lemon. Adam took the mug gratefully.

‘Threw in a pinch of ginger,’ said Ronan.

‘A pinch’ turned out to be a slight underestimation.

‘I feel like it’s scraping out my insides.’

‘That’s the idea,’ said Ronan smugly, picking up his book again.

After a couple sips, Adam carefully put the mug on the bedside table and sank back down into the pillows, feeling too weak to sit up much longer. He was still shivering, and his skin  felt fragile and over-sensitive. He just wanted – to be enveloped in very gentle things.

He thought of the cloud Ronan had dreamed up, which had blown away one day, and wished he was inside that.

‘Tell me where you are in the story,’ he said to Ronan.

‘Scout and Co. found some shit in a tree on the Radley property. Jem’s my favorite so far.’

‘I had a huge crush on Jem,’ Adam recalled suddenly. He just hadn't realised that was what it was at the time.

‘Oh, really? Then he can go fuck himself.’

Adam laughed, because of course Ronan was jealous of a fictional twelve-year-old. The laugh turned into a cough, but he was too weak to do it properly.

‘Oh, baby,’ said Ronan, his face crumpling, and crawled back into the duvet to hug Adam. Adam, so cloudy he could hardly think, could only hug him back, be glad he was there.

Adam had done nothing at all to deserve any of what Ronan was doing for him. It made the whole situation worse, but he was too weak right now not to be selfish, to cling to this while he still had it.

Adam had tried so hard, to stay in control of his fucking feelings. But it was fine. He’d be fine. He’d dealt with worse before. Just let him have this moment, Ronan holding him close, the sound of Ronan's soft, steady breathing inside their cocoon of blankets. Just this, now, and when Adam was better, he would talk to him.

Four days passed before Adam left the Barns. Ronan lay there every day in bed with him, reading while Adam slept, or downloading movies for them to watch together, or telling Adam irritably that if his boss tried to fire him for having the fucking flu he would dream up a kraken to drag him into the bowels of the sea. He also kept trying to kiss Adam frequently, the idiot, and after a while Adam just gave up protesting.


	10. Fall

When Ronan inevitably succumbed, his flu was a lot milder than Adam’s.

‘What can I say.’ He gestured smugly at himself. ‘This immune system is hardcore.’

‘Milder symptoms technically mean yours is less hardcore.’

‘Or just less melodramatic.’ Ronan grinned, indefatigable.

He did still lie in bed shivering for a couple days. Adam rigorously did everything Ronan had done for him – brought him pills and water, and honey and lemon, and extra blankets, while Ronan joked hoarsely with him from his mountain of pillows.

And, although it was so cheesy of him he was ashamed of himself, he read aloud to Ronan from this old, well-thumbed copy of  _The House At Pooh Corner_ that he'd found in a bookshelf. Ronan seemed to like it, though, so he ended up getting his way through most of the book.

On Saturday, Adam even got through some of Ronan’s duties on the farm, and enjoyed most of them more than he'd expected – especially pruning back the grape vines, uncovering these little jewel-like grape bunches underneath the overgrown leaves. He tried to go out again in the evening to finish them off, but Ronan was not pleased.

'It's raining, Parrish. You'll get sick all over again.'

'It's not like you can stop me,' Adam taunted, and then watched in horror as Ronan tried to get out of bed. 'No!' he shouted, and ran over to pin him back down.

Then he had to watch some very dumb action movie with him to make sure he stayed put.

What with both of them catching flu, Adam had missed one whole week of school and work, which would in other circumstances have meant a shit-ton of anxiety and lost sleep. But he was feeling oddly reckless right now, almost like – nothing mattered that much. One day soon, he would be telling Ronan, and after then he probably wouldn't have to watch many dumb action movies any more, anyway.

Ronan was still under the weather on Monday, so Gansey came over after school to keep Ronan company. They watched movies upstairs, where they couldn't hear the phone. When Adam came home from work, he pressed the answering machine to find a message from Stephanie.

‘Fuck, we forgot to cancel,’ said Ronan irritably, when Adam told him.

‘You’re stopping?' said Gansey. 'I thought you liked her.’

‘She's great, I just wanted to stop,’ said Adam.

‘But if you’ve paid for today, you may as well go and get your money’s worth,’ said Gansey reasonably.

‘You could go on your own,’ said Ronan to Adam.

'That's okay.'

‘All right, then, you can pick next movie. As _long_ as it’s not a fucking – documentary on ketchup or something.'

In the end, Adam chose _Safety Not Guaranteed,_ because Ronan liked rom-coms and Gansey liked time travel films and Adam liked Aubrey Plaza. It started out good, but Adam ended up missing most of it.

About half an hour in, he went out to make himself a tea and Gansey accosted him in the kitchen. He looked impossibly grave. Whenever Gansey looked at him like this, Adam instantly felt like he was in trouble at school.

‘What’s going on with the two of you?’ Gansey said softly, voice almost drowned out by the boiling kettle.

‘What? Nothing,’ said Adam.

Gansey just looked at him.

‘Look, it’s –’ Adam broke off and sighed in frustration. ‘It’s nothing.’

Gansey reached over and touched Adam’s wrist.

‘He’s more sensitive than he lets on.'

‘You think I don’t know that?’ Adam snarled.

‘Whatever this is, you need to sort it out, Adam,’ said Gansey. ‘Don't leave him in the dark. Talk to him. Or talk to _someone.'_

But Gansey would never understand. There was no one else Adam could talk to, not really. All of his friends shared this optimistic, dinky little belief Adam was just  _fine,_ he was going to be _fine_.

They would never – none of them, not even Ronan – fully understand the vast gap between their childhoods and his.

The kettle dinged. From upstairs, Adam heard Ronan laugh brightly.

‘I’m going for a drive,’ said Adam abruptly. ‘I’ll talk to him when I get back.’

‘Okay,’ said Gansey, still looking deeply concerned, which annoyed Adam. He wasn't fucking asking any of them to worry about him.

‘Take care of yourself,' Gansey called, as Adam walked out the door. Adam didn't turn back or answer.

*

He didn’t know how it happened exactly, but he found himself pulling into the flowery drive of Stephanie’s practice. He was over twenty minutes late for their appointment; she probably wouldn't even be here.

Maybe he still hadn’t recovered properly, he thought, bypassing knocking on the front door and walking straight to Stephanie's room. His skin still felt clammy and fragile, he felt hollowed-out. The door was ajar, so he pushed it open.

‘Adam,’ said Stephanie, smiling easily up at him. ‘Good to see you. Sit down. Are you alone today?’

‘Yes,’ said Adam. ‘Ronan’s sick.’ He didn’t sit down.

‘How are you?' Stephanie said.

Adam said, ‘I’m sorry I walked out last time.’

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’ve walked out before, too. Don't worry, I don't do it now I'm the therapist,' she added, and cracked an awkward smile.

It was a lame joke. He looked at her, her crooked smile and clunky glasses and her turquoise blouse buttoned all the way up to the top, and felt glad she wasn’t like the others. But still, he stayed in the doorway, shifting on his feet.

‘Did you,’ he managed, and his throat was dry – he cleared it, licked his lips – ‘did you ever think – that there’s so much shit caked up inside you that there’s no point trying to dig it out?’

Stephanie nodded, but said nothing.

‘I just don’t understand,’ he said quietly. ‘Why he’s still here.’

He was pacing up and down the room now, feeling restless and worn-out and thinned. Stephanie was still quiet, waiting.

‘He looks at me like I’m worth something, but he doesn’t – he doesn’t _know_ me.’

He had to tell her, now, didn't he? Had to say aloud the thing he had never said before. He sat down on the edge of the couch and pressed his legs together. She was silent, still. It was strangely liberating, her silence, and maybe that was part of the beauty of therapy.

‘That question,’ he said, ‘the thing you asked before, when I left, last time.’ 

He was breathing heavily now, but he just had to come out and say it.

‘About anger,’ Stephanie said.

Adam nodded.

‘I asked – because almost all survivors experience anger. It’s normal. In fact I’d worry if you didn’t.’

Adam laughed hollowly. ‘Why?’

‘Because, Adam, what happened to you was deeply, deeply wrong, and your anger is a sign that you have not accepted it as right.’

Adam swallowed. ‘I _hate_ my anger,’ he spat. ‘I hate _myself_ for it.’

Stephanie said, quietly, ‘And so did I. But Adam, your anger was your survival mechanism. You spent your childhood being told, through words and actions, that you did not deserve the love you needed. If you _had_ accepted that, you wouldn’t be here today.’

Adam was shaking now.

‘What if,’ he said, and he was digging his fingers into his knees very hard. ‘What if I did something really bad?’

Stephanie paused, and then said, ‘That would also be normal. Children learn by example.’

He dug his fingers in even harder. If his legs had been bare the skin might have broken.

‘I haven’t told anyone before. What I did.’

‘What do you think might happen if you told Ronan?’

A tear spilled down his cheek. He said nothing.

Stephanie looked at him. She didn’t look impatient or bored at all. Her eyes were impossibly gentle. He had to look away from them.

‘He was talking about having kids the other day,’ he said, ‘And I’ve read stuff. About abuse cycles.’

‘Well, I’ve read stuff too,’ said Stephanie, ‘and I can tell you that there is a correlation, but the biggest and most reliable studies suggest that over two-thirds of survivors do not become abusive.’

‘A third do, then. And who knows how fucked-up the others are.’

Stephanie sat forward in her chair and put her hands on her knees.

‘I don’t know you, Adam. But I know you survived a childhood environment of unbelievable stress and fear and came out with certain beliefs about yourself and the world. You fought for control. You achieved good grades throughout your life – what an immense achievement that is, coming from the home you did. Other kids are lifted up by their parents. You lifted yourself up, Adam. Don’t you think that’s incredible?’

‘No,’ said Adam bitterly.

‘I do.’

‘Fine,’ he said, ‘so I’m a fucking – well-adjusted abuse victim. I’m still broken. I still get so angry I’m afraid of myself.’

‘That _is_ something you will have to work through,’ she said, nodding. ‘But, Adam, people can. I was a nightmare when I was your age. Violent, out of control, terrified. I thought I was unloveable. I thought I could never be a good wife, or a good mother. But look,’ and she turned and took down the framed photo of her family.

They looked like a dream family, all beautiful and glowing in the sun.

‘My husband helped a lot, with my self-image,’ she said. ‘But I had to talk to him truthfully. Show him the ugly. He has ugly, too. We all do. It’s partly about knowing yourself, and taking responsibility for your actions, and remembering what’s most important even when the anger is there. Adam, it will be hard at times. But I _know_ you can do it.’

‘But what if I hurt him?’ said Adam, trembling. 

‘It seems to me,’ said Stephanie gently, ‘that this is a very central fear for you. Is that right?’

‘Yes,’ Adam said. ‘I – I threw a fruit bowl at the wall one night,' he said scratchily, and looked at his knees, hot with shame.

Stephanie said, 'Were you trying to hurt Ronan when you threw it?'

‘No,’ Adam said instantly. 'I'd never try to hurt him.' Anything rather than that. He remembered how strong the impulse had been to turn away from him before he threw the bowl. ‘But –’

He didn't know how to put his question into words. Adam knew that the person he was now wouldn't hurt Ronan. Would never hurt a child, either.

But what if he stayed with Ronan, for – for years, and the stains his father had left on him started to spread?

Besides, even Stephanie did not know his past. He wondered, if she knew everything about him, whether that soft look in her eyes would go.

Nonetheless, he thought, as he walked to his car. Nonetheless, seeing Stephanie had helped, because at some point in those forty dragging minutes he had finally found his bravery. He was going to talk to him.


	11. Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter gets quite dark; includes flashbacks to violence.

Adam parked by the honeysuckle-covered fence, just out of view of the house. The sun had just begun to dip downwards, and some trick of the light was turning a fistful of clouds above the Barns pale gold.

He got out of the car and stood in the ankle-length grass. He closed his eyes, breathed in the scent of the place. The cinder-like smell of fallen leaves, and underneath a wet, earthy smell that calmed Adam like nothing else he knew.

He could feel the sunlight permeating his skin, and thought of what Stephanie had said about remembering what was most important at all times. Of what he had decided, sitting on her worn old couch.

He opened his eyes and walked down the drive to Ronan.

*

But Ronan wasn’t in the living room, or the kitchen, or his bedroom – and when Adam shouted his name, there was no answer. Maybe he had gone out with Gansey, but it wasn't like him not to let Adam know. His heart racing stupidly, he checked all the rooms in the house a second time. Then he went out to the garage.

The BMW wasn't there, and the garage door was wide open. Adam looked out to the fields. There – just behind the fruit-orchards – was a dark gleam.

As he rounded the crumbling orchard wall, he saw Ronan was lying on the bonnet of the BMW in full sunlight, an arm flung back to support his head, eyes closed, motionless. He was wearing Adam's raggedy brown jumper and no shoes; his soles were all dirt-stained. He looked beautiful, Adam thought; his lips parted, his dark hair glinting.

He didn't know if Ronan had heard him come up, and he didn't speak for a long time.

‘You gonna just stare at me 'til morning?’ said Ronan without opening his eyes.

'Are you feeling better?' said Adam.

‘Sure.'

‘I went to see Stephanie.'

‘I guessed,’ said Ronan, opening his eyes and rolling onto his side to face Adam. He didn’t reach out or anything, just curled in on himself a little, like someone trying to sleep alone on a cold night. His eyes were dark and shuttered. ‘Any use?’

‘Yeah,’ said Adam. ‘I,’ he said, and he sat down on the stone wall so he was at Ronan's eye level. He ran his hands over his knees, then interlocked them, penning himself in. ‘I wanted to tell you something.’

‘Okay,’ said Ronan, curling up on himself a little more. ‘Hurry up.'

‘Why?’ said Adam.

‘If you’re about to break up with me or whatever,’ said Ronan, voice carefully neutral.

‘What?’ Adam said, heart thundering suddenly. ‘Why would you think that?’

'I don't know, Parrish. I know you've been hiding something. I know you've been slowly pulling away, ever since I fucking – let slip that I think about having kids with you.'

His voice was bumpy and vicious, like it had been dragged through broken glass. Adam closed his eyes.

'But, Ronan – that was months ago,' he said.

Had Ronan been afraid, then, all the way through summer? But that meant – while Adam had been clinging to the last scraps of Ronan he could get, had Ronan been doing the exact same thing? He couldn't make himself believe it.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve been really – I just – I had to sort some stuff out before I talked to you.’

‘Okay,’ said Ronan. He was still tensed on the bonnet, like a cat about to pounce.

Adam took a breath. He thought of the speech he had prepared on the way home; then rehearsed several times in the driveway, with his palms resting against the hot bonnet of his car; then gone over and over in his head as he searched through the house for Ronan.

‘Look, the thing is,’ he said heavily, ‘there’s stuff you don’t know about me. The person you’re into – it’s not the real me. And I thought you deserved to know the truth.’

Ronan glared. How dark and fragile the circles beneath his eyes looked right now.

‘I mean, I’m not “into” you, I’m fucking in love with you–' and it was like someone had thrown Adam against a wall, knocked out all his breath – ‘and I think I know you pretty well after four _fucking_ years, but sure, go ahead.’

He seemed unable to remain still after this utterance, and swung himself off the bonnet, pacing up and down with his pale, bare feet over the dirt and stones and fallen leaves.

‘You’re not in love with me,’ Adam explained, and felt a little better. ‘You don’t know me.’

Ronan stopped walking abruptly. He slowly turned to look back at Adam.

‘Okay, then,’ he said, with heavy sarcasm, shoving his hands into his pockets, ‘why don’t you tell me what I need to know about you, so I can make my mind up.’

‘When I was a kid,’ said Adam, and stopped.

Ronan was utterly still now, looking at him with perfect concentration.

So this was it.

‘I –’  He looked at a magpie pecking at the rotted fruit by the wall. He remembered, suddenly, the exact feeling he'd had – a red emptiness, the same feeling he got sometimes when he would scratch his arms so hard they bled.

Ronan knew all about confession. Adam didn’t. He didn’t fucking understand how it made anyone feel holy. He felt so sick. He bent his head and closed his eyes.

‘I used to hit other kids,’ he whispered. ‘And I – I hurt a bird.’

He had not let himself think about those things for so many years. That fist of anger, holding Adam helpless and limp in his grip. 

‘I threw rocks at it.'

He remembered the exact sound the bird had made when a rock had made contact. Turning and running; unable to look at what he had done. 

He watched the magpie ruffle her feathers; caught the surprising gleam of bottle-green beneath the black. He looked up to see Ronan was watching her too.

Ronan had always loved birds.

‘How old were you?' Ronan said now. Adam had been wondering if he was going to just walk away.

He realised something. He had to keep this conversation going as long as possible. Even if everything Ronan said from here-on out felt like a vicious blow, it didn't matter. He couldn't let it stop, or –

‘I don’t know,' he said hoarsely. ‘I guess it was sometime before fourth grade.’

He’d stopped hitting other kids, stopped causing trouble altogether, when he’d seen the look in Ms Waiker’s eyes one day, after he'd made someone cry. He couldn't bear her disappointment – it had made him feel less than trash, less than dirt. He'd started turning his anger in on himself, instead. Where it had always belonged.

‘So, do I have this right?’ said Ronan, and his voice was simmering with anger.

And Adam couldn’t look him in the eyes.

‘You were about eight years old, and every night you’d go home to your dad, sometimes he’d hit your mom but more often he’d hit you, make you cry, make you bleed and bruise, and he'd swear at you, and he made sure that you knew every day you were worthless, you didn’t deserve love, and your mom didn’t do a fucking thing to make you think otherwise.

‘And so you grew up–’ – Ronan's voice broke – ‘without the love you needed, you  _deserved,_  grew up believing you weren’t – _w-worth_ that love. And when you were eight years old – and you were – hiding your bruises from the fucking teachers – sometimes you’d hit other kids, and one time you chucked stones at a bird. Is that right?’

‘But you don't get it,’ whispered Adam. He still couldn’t look at him. He felt he needed to make Ronan understand, fully, this enormous truth about himself. ‘I _wanted_ to hurt it, Ronan.'

He tried to prepare himself for the loss of him. His heart was burning in protest within his chest, like it had been doused in acid, or set aflame.

He heard the soft crunching of the leaves, as Ronan walked slowly over to him.

‘Get this into your skull, Parrish,’ said Ronan, steady and low, and he felt Ronan's arms, wiry and strong and never anything but gentle for Adam, encircle him. ‘Falling in love with you was the best thing I’ve ever done. Okay?’

Adam was trembling. He felt tears tracking down his cheeks.

‘Adam,’ said Ronan. He held him tighter.

‘I’m not like you,’ Adam said into his chest. ‘I can’t just – I’m so fucking scared.’

‘I’m terrified every goddamn day, Parrish. But it’s been like three years now since I realised how I felt about you, so I’m kind of used to it.’

Adam closed his eyes. But that would have meant he started loving him back before Adam had even left home, back when he had been little more than a collection of exhausted, fearful parts, not even a real person at all.

Adam was so tired, so, so tired, and he just – didn’t want to leave this place.

 _Just please,_ he thought,and who he was talking to he didn’t know, _don’t make me leave._

Adam realised the reason that Ronan was being so kind must be that he hadn’t fully understood what Adam had been telling him. Adam would have to explain again.

But all of Adam's nerves felt exposed. He’d tried so hard, to push him away, and he was still here. Maybe he just didn’t have the strength to try any more.

‘Okay,’ said Ronan, and Adam could hear it now, all the tremulous vibrations of uncertainty and doubt and fear in Ronan’s voice. ‘Please just, _please_ just come in and we’ll have dinner or something.’

‘Ronan. I’m sorry,’ Adam said, his voice breaking. ‘I'm so sorry.’

Because if it was true – if it was true, after all, that Ronan – Ronan loved him as Adam loved Ronan, if he had thought Adam was going to leave –

Then Adam had been hurting him already, for weeks and weeks.

What was he supposed to do? he thought despairingly. If, whatever choice he made, he was still going to hurt him?

‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ said Ronan. ‘Just, please, come inside for a bit. We can talk more later.’

Adam nodded, and they walked, together, back towards the house.


	12. Fall

It had been another one of those Friday nights at the Barns that always, somehow, ended up with someone asleep in the cabbages. (Usually Noah.)

It had started out tame – they’d been messing around, drawing portraits of one another with various handicaps – wrong hands, eyes closed, no hands at all – and then Henry Cheng and his crowd showed up with a banged-up old guitar and several bottles of vodka and rum, demanding mixers and decent singers, or failing that, people who knew all the lyrics to _American Pie_.

And then it was 3 a.m. and Noah was in the cabbage patch again – Blue and Gansey tried several times to drag him out and into a pile of blankets, but he always just grumbled at them and crawled right back in. Adam was lying on the porch in a warm mess of people. Blue was clasping Adam’s left hand, and his right was tangled with Ronan’s, whose head was on his shoulder; Gansey’s legs were heavy on top of his, and this girl called Beth, who Adam had only met an hour ago, was lying in his lap and talking up at him about the Appalachian Trail. He felt warm and heavy and painfully sweet with love. He fell asleep to the sound of Beth advising him how to choose the best hiking boot.

He woke up in bed, with no memory of how he got there. Now it was just Ronan tangled up with him. Only, he noticed, Ronan’s arms weren’t around him like usual, because he was clutching something small to his chest.

He looked protective of whatever it was, even in his sleep. Adam watched him for a while before he drifted down into dreams again.

He woke up to an uncertain grey sky and Ronan awake, whispering something into his cupped hands, lashes dark against his cheeks.

‘Hey,’ Adam said.

‘Hi,’ Ronan said, and his eyes, when he lifted them, had an odd look, intense and tremulous.

‘You okay?’ Adam said.

Ronan nodded. ‘I dreamed something for you.’

And Ronan reached out to him beneath the blankets. Adam, slowly, reached back to him, and Ronan tipped something warm and impossibly soft and  _moving_ into Adam’s hands. He felt something prick him sharply. A rapid heartbeat.

‘She’s a bit scared still,’ Ronan said.

And Adam realised what it must be, in his hands, and he felt his heart jump-start like someone had held a gun to his chest.  His first reaction was to shove it back at Ronan and run.

But he couldn’t, because Ronan had already reached out and wrapped his rough, callused hands around Adam’s.

‘It’s okay,’ Ronan said, and smiled, young and new.

So Adam just kept hold of the little bundle and closed his eyes.

He did something Stephanie had taught him to do; chose a spot, at the base of his throat, and focused all of his attention on the feel of the breath moving past it, up warm, and down cool again. He did that for a while, until he felt his heart slow down, and Ronan’s hands stayed closed around his the whole time.

Adam opened his eyes. He brought his hands out of the duvet, up into the uncertain morning light, and unfolded them.

Looking up at him was this tiny, bedraggled, fluffy little black chick – with a beak she was seriously going to have to grow into.

She opened her mouth. Adam expected a little chirrup, or a squeak, nothing like what came out.

‘Oh, my God,’ he said, catching Ronan’s eyes and managing a laugh. He gently stroked the chick’s head with his forefinger. She actually leaned into his touch.

‘What kind of bird is she?’ he said.

‘A raven,’ Ronan said.

Adam put her gently on top of the duvet. They watched her take a couple of excited steps and instantly faceplant. Ronan reached out to help, but she’d already gotten up and started running again.

‘So,’ Ronan said. ‘What are you gonna call her?’

The chick had made it successfully over to Ronan, and cawed up at him.

Ronan snorted back at her. ’Jesus. You’re not a raven, you’re a fucking chainsaw.’ He looked over at Adam expectantly.

‘I,’ Adam managed, but then his voice stuck.

‘Oh, baby,’ said Ronan, reaching out to him.

And that was unfair, because Ronan only said that when Adam was being particularly pathetic, and Adam was fine. He was – handling it.

But now that Ronan’s arms were around him, he couldn’t stop himself from letting out a shuddering breath. He wiped his eyes, hard, with the heels of his hands.

The chick, cawing her ridiculous caw and fluttering her wings, now decided her next goal was to ascend the mountain made by Adam’s knees under the duvet. Once she had reached the summit, she stood still atop it like she was queen of the world. Then she looked straight at Adam, and it felt like she was trying to tell him something.

‘See, she likes you already,’ Ronan said. ‘Adam. I trust you. It’s gonna be okay.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Just wanted to say a big thank you for taking the time to read this and leave kudos and comments along the way. I was really nervous to post this fic and you kept me going :) 
> 
> I genuinely appreciate every comment so, so much, including constructive feedback! So please don't be afraid to let me know if there was something you didn't like or found confusing – or any continuity errors you noticed, I'll bet there are 1000s, lol. You can also hit me up on [tumblr](https://douxamers.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Wish I could dream you guys all the gifts! x


End file.
